Enfield town centre

Post to the west Windmill Hill
Post to the south Bush Hill Park
Post to the east Enfield Town



Baker Street
The road is a continuation of Green Lanes, part of a drove road into London. In Enfield is also called Silver Street
14 Police station. Post war building.  Outside is an old police lamp on the site corner

Burliegh Way
Rialto Cinema. This opened in 1920 by Denman (London) Cinemas. It was however leased to Sydney Bernstein in 1925 and redesigned by Cecil Masey and interior designer Theodore Komisarjevsky. There was an ornate entrance facing the Market Place and a posher entrance round the back. It had a ‘straight’ Jones 2Manual organ later replaced by a Christie 2Manual/7Rank theatre organ in 1927. It was re-named Granada in 1967 and closed in 1971. It became a Bingo Club, in later years operated by Gala. It closed in 1997 and was demolished in 2010.

Cecil Road
Laid out early 1900s. It was extended up to Church Street through the ground of Chaseside house which was demolished. The house had been bought because of intentions to build council offices there.
79 Enfield Town Community Church. This appears to have been Enfield Town Evangelical Free church, which was built in 1897. It was damaged in the Second World War and replaced in 1956 by a plain brick building.  It is now in a new modern building of 2012 by CPL Architects, having left the old building in 2004 which was CPOed so that Lidl could be built.
Enfield Wesleyan Methodists. This was a brick church on the corner with Sydney Road built here in 1864. It closed in 1889 and was used by St. Andrew's National school as a girls' school. They left in 1926 and it later became the parish hall for St. Andrew's church
28 British Legion, The club, said to be one of the oldest in the country, opened here in 1921 but moved elsewhere in 1971.
KICC Lighthouse, Kingsway International Christian Centre. This branch is on pert of the Baptist Church complex.
Enfield Baptist Church. Built 1925, by W. Giles Scott but intended as a hall. The church was rebuilt in 2910.
British Telecom Exchange. This was the GPO installation office plus telephone exchange. It was built in 1925 but remained manual until 1960.
28 Central Library.  Built 1912, it was a Carnegie Library designed by Richard Collins who was the Surveyor to the District Council.  It was extended in 2010 to a design by Shepheard Epstein and Hunter with a glass and steel frontage onto the re-landscaped Library Green. It is on two floors, with a cafe, children’s corner, and quiet spaces, reading chairs (with window views), self-service check-in/out and lots of internet access points.
Library Green. This was part of the grounds of Chase Side House purchased in 1901 by the District Council. The Green was laid out as a public green space and re-designed in 2010.
Town Park.  This is an Enfield Borough Council Park opened in 1903. It has four tennis courts and two multi-use games areas which can be used for basketball and 5 a side football. The New River Loop passes through the Park and the stream is widened to form a lake with an island. The banks were strengthened with old railway sleepers. At the southern end of the Park the loop turns eastwards under a footbridge and continues to the boundary where the water flows away to waste. There are iron gates at the Cecil Road entrance with an adjacent drinking fountain, and railings. It was part of the grounds of Chase Side House.

Chapel Street
This road did not exist before the Second World War, and initially was not connected south to Enfield Town. It was originally cottages called Love’s Row which were unhealthy and demolished to be replaced by Council flats.
Saddler’s Brook – the stream passes under this area.

Chase Green
Remnant of Enfield Chase. Originally woodland it became part of Enfield Chase in 1136 but commoner’s rights were retained, the Chase was enclosed in 1779 and again in 1803 except this area which was transferred to Enfield Urban District Council in 1898. It was thus the first public open space in Enfield. A portion was part of a land swap deal with the Great Northern Railway in 1904. It is now a registered Village Green. In the early 1800s it was used for cricket with a paid beadle in charge of organizing the mowing, rolling etc. as well as paying the team bill at the Cricketers Pub and taking bets on the outcome of matches. There is some oak woodland remaining.
Cenotaph Gardens and War Memorial. This replaced a bandstand built in 1900. It dates from1921and comprises a tall, tapering pedestal on a stepped base, within a paved area with twelve stone posts. Above is a tapering sarcophagus. It is inscribed OUR GLORIOUS DEAD and on the sides 1914 - 1919 and 1939 - 1945. It was unveiled by Lt-Gen Sir Francis Lloyd on and contained a capsule, with copies of The Times, The Enfield Gazette and Observer, an autographed list of members of the Enfield Patriots' Committee, and some coins.
Forge – a forge in the south west of the Green closed in 1933.

Chase Side
The road is marked as this on Rocque's map of 1754 and the Ordnance Survey map of 1887 – the reference being to Enfield Chase. The road was called ‘Woodside’ in 1572

Chase Side Place
19 The Cricketers. McMullins House since 1919.

Church Lane
The lane dates from around 1803
Portcullis House Gothic building.  A small crenellated building at the edge of the churchyard was built by the Vestry in the early 19th for the parish fire engine. From 1882 it was a mortuary becoming a Chapel of Rest for a local undertaker, then offices. It is now a church meeting room.
Enfield Treatment Centre.  This is attached to an adjacent Health Centre and Practice.

Church Street
This street has evolved from a path which would have led from the edge of The Chase to The Green, the Church and the roads to London and to Hertford.
100 Metaswitch. This is a software company whose offices are on a site used for Council offices in the 1960s and the YMCA earlier. .YMCA in 1919 erected a hut here from Enfield Lock which was called the Red Triangle club for ex-servicemen.  -  provided billiards and so on.
Trinity Methodist Church. The church moved here in 1889 from Cecil Road. The church is by F.  Boreham in ragstone, with a tower, spire and pinnacles. It is now run along with united reform and includes St. Paul’s Presbyterian Church.
St Paul’s Centre. This is in a former Presbyterian church. It describes itself as a ‘village hall’ or a ‘church centre’ and provides space for many organisations and activities. It is a large ragstone building of 1907 on a prominent comer site by W. Wallace and a Subdivided 1987.  There is an Ordnance Survey flush bracket is on the front of a building.
New River. The Old Course flows under it to the west of Gentleman’s Row and Cecil Road. The bridge was widened in 1910.
Chase Green Gardens. These are on the corner with Chase Side laid cut 1900 belatedly for Queen Victoria's diamond Jubilee. The Millennium Sundial replaced an earlier drinking fonntain and was inaugurated in 2000. The New River Loop flows through the gardens and is crossed by a 19th iron bridge. In 1938 the Council took the Enfield Loop under their control.
Post Office. Built 1906 on what had been the grounds of Percy House. It displays the royal arms on the gable and ‘Enfield Post Office’ lettering over the door.
48 Rising Sun. This pub was demolished for road widening. Had opened in 1736
Fountains. Coach builders – ‘of note in Middlesex”
Enfield Palace – this was once on the site of Enfield Palace Shopping Centre.  The building known as The Palace was a 16th manor house extending 450 yards along the street. It had earlier been a substantial moated building approached by a gatehouse from what was then the Green. It was used as a private school from the mid-17th until the late 19th. It was subsequently used as a post office at the turn of the 20th century and later as a Conservative club; convalescent soldiers were entertained there in the Great War. The last remains of it were demolished in 1928, for an extension to Pearson's department store.
Palace School. Dr. Robert Uvedale, master of the Enfield grammar school, opened a private boarding school in Enfield manor-house around 1670. It was later known as the Palace school and closed in 1896.  Uvedale was a botanist who built numerous outbuildings to house and planted one of the first cedar of Lebanon trees in England in the grounds
Welch’s Livery Stables. They ran a horse drawn cab service into the early 20th.
Graham Cycle Manufacturer. This was run by two brothers, and later became motor engineers. They made a ‘Parade’ bicycle and a tandem and later a motorised bicycle with a rear basket work passenger seat.

Church Walk
Church Walk dates from at least 1590
Enfield Grammar School.  The school was founded in 1558. They took over Poynetts, an endowment which funded an earlier chantry school. An older school-house existed east of the churchyard in 1572 where the grammar school began, until the building of Old Hall in the 1580s using money left by William Garrett. It remained a grammar school until the 1960s when it was amalgamated with Chace Boys School as a comprehensive school. The school buildings are next to the Market Place and Church, and have been extended several times including shortly before the Second World War. In 1924 the lower school was moved to a site in Baker Street was purchased to accommodate the lower school. Charles Babbage went to school here Frederick Marryat, and later also the Babbage children. The earliest surviving building is from the late 16th.  The address of the current school is in Parsonage Lane. The school is now an ‘academy’ with no mention of its past or past alumni on its web site.
St Andrew’s Church. This is a town church. A priest is mentioned in the Domesday Book of1086 which might imply the presence of a church. Records dating from 1136 cite a link to Saffron Walden and there are some remains of around this date. The church was restored and enlarged in the 14th including the tower, over the Chancel arch is a painting from 1923 as a memorial to Enfield men killed the Great War and there are many monuments to the dead of many centuries
Churchyard. There are any monuments including to a New River surveyor. The graveyard has a number of different railed areas, and paved walks. It was enlarged in 1778 with the purchase of land to the north. It is densely planted with yew, Scots pine and other ornamental conifers and prominent horse chestnut. An ancient yew clipped as a cone has now been lost.
School of Industry. This was an Anglican school for girls opened in 1800 in premises in the churchyard belonging to Prounce's charity and known as the Old Coffee House. It was supported by voluntary contributions and managed by a committee of ladies. In 1876 it moved to premises in Silver Street

Churchbury Road
The New River runs beneath the road and into the gardens around the Civic Centre

Genotin Road
This was originally Station Road.
2 Enfield Arms. In 1855 this was the Railway Hotel. Closed 2005 and demolished.
7 Bar Form. Opened 2005 in old shop premises. #
Chase Non-Ferrous Metal Co Ltd where L.Whitworth was ‘one of the pioneers of die casting”.  They went out of business in 1992

Gentleman’s Row
The road follows the Old Course of the New River. The town of Enfield was almost encircled by the loop of the New River, which in 1890 was abandoned as the length from Enfield was piped underground. This stretch was saved by a public campaign and it is essentially a linear lake.
The Gardens have willow, cedar, beech, holly, laurel and yew with roadside planting of limes. In 1998 the New River Loop Restoration Project began to restore the watercourse, bridges and railings, as well as the timber river banks.
1 Registry Office and Borough Health Office.  Once known as Little Park it is a formal five-bay mid-18th house which once had gardens and a lake to the rear. It is now owned by Enfield Council.
Coach House. This was an outbuilding, a barn. Around 1950 it was rented by the Enfield People's Theatre Group for constructing and painting of scenery.  It is weather boarded with a projecting gable and is now converted into housing. It is adjacent to No.11.
17 Clarendon Cottage.  An 18th house with a 17th chimneystack built round a late medieval timber-framed hall house.  Where Charles Lamb with his sister, Mary, lodged with Mrs. Leisham in 1825 and 1827.
33 Archway cottage. This was once Archway Tavern which may have had town cockpit in the front garden. It lost its licence in 1913. The building dates from around 1750 and an arch leads to what was Love's Row – now called Holly Walk
Trinity Church Hall. Attached to Trinity Church built 1913-14 by F. Bethel. Used by the Jason Theatre School
Footbridge. 1613 in classic cast iron.

Gladbeck Way
Site of the GNR goods station and the original terminus of the line. The canopy is at the Whitewebbs museum. Housing here dates from early 2000s.

Holly Walk
A back lane, running between the Grammar and County schools to emerge in Gentleman's Row
Enfield County Upper School. Built as girl’s grammar school in 1909. Designed by H. G. Crothall of Middlesex County Council.  Enfield County School was administered by Middlesex County Council Education Committee and merged with Chace Girls School which had been formed in 1962 as a girls' secondary modern school from the senior girls department at Lavender School. It became the comprehensive girls' Enfield Chace School in 1967, changing to its current name in 1987. In 2005 the school was designated a specialist school for languages.

Horseshoe Lane
12-15 Crown and Horseshoes 19th pub. This is a Greene King house.
Danby Court built 1974 as sheltered housing. The site had had a number of previous uses.
Stag Brewery, founded 1760, taken over as a works for dyeing cotton in 1856 but became a brewery once more in the 1880s and closed soon after 1890.It may have been owned by a M. Green and later by the Gripper Brothers of Tottenham.  It later became the Picuredrome
The Picturedrome opened in 1911. The building had previously been in use as a brewery, a dye works and a soup kitchen. The Cinema closed in 1918.
Suttons. A local drug company which had a warehouse on the site of the Picuredrome until the mid-1960’s. It was demolished and Danby Court built on the site.

Little Park Gardens
1 The Stag Hotel.
Bus Station. Terminus for a number of bus services

London Road
Continuation of Green Lanes from Silver Street –a drove road into London
Enfield Baptist tabernacle. A classical brick building was opened in 1875 for a membership of Particular Baptists. It included a lecture and a Sunday school on a site opposite. It was sold in 1925 and a church opened in Cecil Road.
National School. St. Andrew's or Enfield National School opened in 1839 in a brick building here with separate schoolrooms for boys and girls as well as evening classes for adults. An infants' schoolroom was also added. From 1879 it was used only for girls and infants and in 1891 the girls moved elsewhere. The building was then bought as a Sunday school hall by the Baptist tabernacle.
Florida Cinema. This opened as the Queen’s Hall Kinema in 1911. Independently operated, it was the first purpose-built cinema in Enfield and it included a tea lounge/café. Having been bombed in 1940 it closed and became a Ministry of Food store. After the war it was taken over by Davies Cinemas Ltd. and called the Florida Cinema from 1947. In 1974 it was taken over by Granada Theatres Ltd. and it closed in 1976. It became a banqueting hall and function suite called The Town House and then a nightclub which closed in 2004. It was demolished in early 2005 and the site is now flats.
Police Station. This dated from 1873 and is shown on maps of the mid- 1960s as a ‘horse patrol’
St Ann’s Catholic School for Girls.  This opened in 1994, following an amalgamation of Holy Family Convent School and St Angela's School for Girls
Holy Family School.  The sisters of the Holy Family of Nazareth established a private school adjoining their convent here in 1907. It school became part of a new comprehensive school in 1967 the upper classes using this site.
Our Lady of Mount Carmel and St. George, Roman Catholic Church built 1958 by J. E. Sterrett & B. D. Kaye in pale brick with a large square tower.
52 Convent of the Holy Family of Nazareth. This is part of the Congregation of the Sisters of the Holy Family of Nazareth an international, apostolic religious order of pontifical right, founded by Frances Siedliska.
47 Revival Christian  Church.

Market Place
Originally the market was held on a small green. The current market place has been licenced since 1532, when market proceeds were dedicated to poor relief. The market has a 1616 charter from James I. 1632 vestry bought and demolished Vine Pub to make space. In 1822 a fence was erected between the churchyard and the Market Place. It is now a paved triangular roundabout
Market cross, built 1826 in an attempt to revive the market. Later the top became unstable and was removed. Re-erected in Myddelton House Gardens to decorate to pergola.
Market House - 19th octagonal timber-columned structures which was re-built in 1904 to commemorate Edward VII's coronation. The original market house was built in 1632 and demolished in 1810.
Drinking Water Pump. Cast iron public supply hand pump still with handle, which stood in the Market Place from 1847-1904. Reinstalled 1979.   
King’s Head. Old English style pub with tile-hanging and half-timbered gables; by Shoebridge & Rising, 1899.  Dates from 1516 original demolished 1899
Underground toilets 1920-1950s also used as air raid shelter and demolished in the 1950s

Old Park Avenue
This is on the line of the drive to the house in Chase Park.
Drill Hall Sports Club. This was built in 1901 for the Enfield Town Company of the first volunteer battalion of the Middlesex Regiment.
Enfield Town Club. This private members club was founded in 1890 and in 1895 was enrolled into the Association of Conservative Clubs to which it is still affiliated.

Palace Gardens
This road is now completely obliterated by the shopping centre which is named after it.

River View
A footpath which called crosses the defunct loop of the New River twice over iron bridges

Sarnesfield Rad
Cyldon Works. This firm manufactured model stationary steam engines, 1947 -1951 by Sydney S Bird & his sons Cyril and Donald. They used non-ferrous metals, especially aluminium alloys, with very little steel. All the engines were methylated spirit-fired

Shirley Road
Shirley Hall, Chase Family Church Centre
St. Johns Ambulance

Silver Street
This is part of the drove road into London, lying between Baker Street and London Road.
Drinking Fountain. Installed in 1884 and now at the Junction with London Road and The Town. It has two bronze cherubs and had a lamp with a vertical gas burner, later replaced in 1901-1908 by a three-arm inverted burner lamp. It has a plaque saying “Erected by public subscription 1884”.There is a subsequent dedication to Henry Joshua Brown (1906 - 1983) Past President and Horticulturalist”.
36 Vicarage . This probably dates from the 13th and is still in its original position, with a walled garden.  The timber house was encased in brick in 1845 but still has two 16th wings. The between the garden and the churchyard was built by parishioners in 1800.
Civic Centre.  Built by Eric G. Houghton & Assocs.  The first phase was built 1957-61 with an upper floor projecting over the base, and the Council Chamber to the rear. In front is a pool created from a loop of the New River and a bronze sculpture of the Enfield Beast by R. Bentley Claughton. The second phase is the twelve-storey tower clad in stainless steel,
Enfield Grammar School, Lower School. This is in what was Enfield Court. The house has a late 17th core with a Georgian front. It was purchased by the school in 1824 and its former gardens provide the school with playing fields. The Enfield Loop of the New River passes through the playing fields,
43 Silver Cinema. Originally a drill hall this was built in 1882, it was converted into the Enfield Empire Cinema in 1910. By 1912, it was known as the Enfield Picture Theatre, and later that year it was re-named Cosy Cinema. In 1913 it was renovated and re-opened as the Silver Cinema. It was closed in 1918, and converted into a dance hall. It was then taken over by the Enfield Gazette newspaper for their composing room. They moved out before 1986, and it was demolished and is now offices
68 White Lodge.  Now a health centre. In the 18rh it was the home, of Whittacker of the Almanac.
New River. This flow under Silver Street and then runs alongside a track leading to the Civic Centre's private car park, Here it turns north and flows on three sides of the school playing field until it reaches Parsonage Gardens.
45 Church of England School of Industry. Built in 1876 red brick with stone dressings.

Sydney Road
Once called Slaughterhouse Lane
52 Tower Point. An eleven storey office block covering most of the eastern side of the road in the 1960s.  This is now residential.  As an office block it housed a number of public sector agencies – Eastern Gas, and the ground breaking computer consortium, LOLA.
Duke of Abercorn. Pub dating from the 1860s, now demolished.
St. Andrew's or Enfield National School dated from 1839. A boys' school building was opened in Sydney Road in 1879 and in 1926 a new junior and infants' school also moved here. The school has now moved again.
Gas Works, Some local people established a gas company and a gasworks had was built in Sydney Road by 1858.  In 1911, along with a works at Ponders End it was transferred to the Tottenham and Edmonton Gas Light and Coke Co.  The works in Sydney Road were still in use in 1908

The Town
Central area of Enfield since 1754 and previously called Enfield Green
1-3 Market Chambers. This is now the Santander Bank. It was one of the original Burtons Menswear stores with a Snooker Hall on the upper floors, and this survives.  The architect was probably Harry Wilson, the house architect for Burtons.
5 O’Neills. This pub was The George. There has been a pub here since the 16th when it was owned by St Leonards Church at Shoreditch.”  This is a rebuild of 1895 and it now claims to be ‘Irish’ since 1997. It has also been called The Goose and George recently.
Barclays Bank.  Dated 1897, by W. Gilbert Scott; I 1967 the world's first bank cash dispensing machine was installed here. First Automatic Teller Machine (ATM) and opened by Reg Varney.   There’s a plaque on it.
Greyhound Pub. 1364-1860s later called The Bank and subsequently Courthouse. It was demolished in 1897 and became the site of the present Barclay's Bank.
22 old Vestry offices. This is a single storey hexagonal building with a polygonal façade.   In the 19th used as a beadle’s offices, and became a police station and garage. It was built around 1800 or 1830 and contained two prison cells
26 Prezzo.  This is said to have been The Rummer Pub from 1698 and said to have been demolished 1859.  However also said to have been called the Coach House and the Railway Inn and later The Beaconsfield Hotel. It has a coach entry to access the rear of the building and a clock over the frontage in the shape of a beer barrel.

Windmill Hill
Magistrates Court. Built 1900 by H. T. Wakelam. It is Single-storeyed in red brick. In 1913 the brick wall and railings were cut back so that it is now on the corner of Old Park Avenue.
Railway Bridge 1910. The railway line from Grange Park to Stevenage via Cuffley and Hertford North was built as part of the 1898 Great Northern Railway Act designed to relieve congestion on the main railway line through Potters Bar. This Act specified various details of the bridges. This one had to have red brickwork, coping stones and be of a reasonably ornamental character.
The Old Wheatsheaf. It has a ground-floor frontage with curved bay windows and a brown glazed brick facing. The etched windows have representations of a wheatsheaf and Art Nouveau-style flowers. In one room is a fireplace with mirrored over mantel: the tiled strips with stylised tulips. The pub was probably called the Old Wheatsheaf to distinguish it from another Wheatsheaf in Baker Street..
Enfield Station Opened 1871 as the Great Northern Railway terminus on the line from Alexandra Palace.  However by 1887, 37 trains a day left Enfield, mainly for King's Cross, but also to Broad Street and until 1907, to Woolwich and Victoria. This was south of Windmill Hill, with an entrance west and uphill of the current station, opposite the present Chase Court Gardens. The main building in yellow stock brick. It closed in 1910. .  The new replacement station which was to be a through station was built downhill and to the west in order to avoid an awkward level crossing over Windmill Hill.   The original station site was used for goods. In 1940, it was reopened the new station was bombed. In 1970s the track was lifted and the buildings were eventually demolished following a fire. The site is now completely redeveloped with housing on Gladbeck Way.
Windmill Inn. Opened at the same time as the station. Demolished 1982
Enfield Chase Station.  Built in 1906  this lies between Gordon Hill and Grange Park on Great Northern Railway.  It replaced the 1871 terminus.  It had a ticket hall at street level with an Art Nouveau entrance porch, one island platform, and good facilities.  It was bombed in 1940.  Built on an embankment, of lightweight wooden construction.  The street level building is set back from the main road to allow a spacious 'pull-in' for taxis and private cars, together with a convenient 'bus stop just outside. The Embankment was planted decorated with plane trees as required by Enfield Urban District Council . In 1924 'Chase' was added to the name presumably to avoid confusion with the former Great Eastern establishment at the other end of town.
Goods yard which later became a centralised coal depot.  Now Gladbeck Way.
34 Job centre


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